Для самообразования товарищей из "Завтра" и пр.
The Christian medieval sources of the West's 'New World Order'
T. M. P. Duggan



ANTALYA - The expressions that have marked like pistol shots the last two decades of Western political discourse, expressions such as: "The third age" (the third way in politics, the rhetoric of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair), the "The New Man", "The New Age", "The New World Order" (U.S. former President George Bush), the apocalyptic division of the world into "Them and us", "Good and evil", (the "Axis of evil", of the speeches of the present U.S. President), of "The end of history" (Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Francis Fukuyama, amongst many others), all have their witting and unwitting, their conscious and subconscious source back in the 12th century.

The root of this discourse and rhetoric is to be found in a 12th century Christian visionary, pilgrim to Christian Crusader occupied Palestine and expounder of the meaning within the Book of the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse forms the last book, also called the "Book of Revelation", of the Christian Bible. This book was written about 95/96 A.D. by St John the Divine who had been exiled to the Island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea (WNW of Bodrum), where he was vouchsafed this revelation. For this reason he is also known as St. John of Patmos. The text of this vision is addressed to the Christian congregations of the cities of: Thyatira (Akhisar), Philadelphia (Alasehir), Pergamum (Bergama), Ephesus (Efes), Smyrna (Izmir), Laodicea (Laodikya) and Sardis (Sart), called the 7 Churches of Revelation. They are all in Western Turkey.

This 12th century scholar monk and later abbot's powerful interpretive writings and thought still influence and circulate today and he was also the founder, with Papal support, of the monastic order of St. Giovanni in Fiore in 1196, which continued to function until 1570 when it was incoporated into the Cistercian Order. The Abbey Church of the Monastery of San Giovanni in Fiore has in the last few decades been restored. He had good relations, not only with the Pope but also with the Imperial Hohenstaufen court at Palermo in Sicily, at a time of great rivalry between the two great powers of Latin Europe, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope.

Joachim of Fiore c.1135 - 1202
This man was Joachim of Fiore, born in the town of Celico, in Calabria in Southern Italy in about the year 1135. He was possibly of Jewish ethnicity and he became a member of the Benedictine monastic Order in 1171. Joachim was influenced by the works of the Spanish Jewish convert to Catholicism Petrus Alphonsi, who had been the physician to Alfonso VI of Castile and then to Henry Ist of England. In 1190-1 Joachim was invited to visit Richard the Lion Heart at the start of the 3rd Crusade to express his "prophetic" opionion of the possibility of the 3rd Crusade capturing Jerusalem from the Moslems, for by 1190 Joachim was regarded by many as a real prophet of the future, he also influenced the course of history and politics through his meeting with Emperor Henry VI in 1191.

Dante in his "Divine Comedy" placed Joachim in Paradise, in the circle of the sun, of the light of Christian wisdom, as he saw Joachim as imbued with the prophetic spirit. Dante's aim in writing the Divine Comedy was to "set Christendom on the right road to the Apocalypse". Joachim of Fiore was also the patron saint of Christopher Columbus who sailed on his voyage, which resulted in 1492 in his discovery of central America, the "New World", as a Christian Crusader, determined to war against the infidels and Moslems, to evangelise the world and so to bring about the third age as Joachim had foretold, as Columbus's diaries make clear.

Joachim's description of the beast mentioned in the Apocalypse (Book of Revelations ch. 12 & 13) with its 7 heads, Joachim identified as being the heads of the 7 great persecutors of Christianity: "of King Herod, Emperor Nero, Constantinus Arrianus, either the Prophet Muhammed or Keyhusrev of Persia, Mesemonthus, the Moslem warrior Sultan Saladdin Eyyub who recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders and of the Anti-Christ". This description, along with his theory of world history divided into three parts, and the signs that will announce the third age, have sunk deep roots in both Christian and Western secular thought over the last 800 years.

His thinking and rhetoric still haunt the Western world, not just amongst the North American Evangelical fundamentalist and millenarian groups scattered from Texas to the Arctic Circle, as his thinking and discourse has become ingrained as a subtext to the thought patterns of Western people who have never read a word of the books he wrote in Latin. This, even though his work was on occasion proscribed by the Catholic Church as heretical. He has been seen as the first advocate of "modern man" with his emphasis upon a future for mankind that surpasses the past, in contrast to the traditional Christian view of humanities decline as man approached the Last Days and became increasingly remote from the time of Christ; and in his stress upon gaining freedom from the hierarchical Roman Catholic Church, and thus supporting the evangelical movement, and man as a free spirit, a child of the Holy Spirit, as such, Joachim has been regarded by some as a precursor and advocate of modern revolutionaries and liberation movements both withing and beyond the church.

Joachim's writings influenced the course of Catholic reformers including the Spiritual Franciscans, one example, from the many Spiritual Francisans who fell under the influence of his thought and writings, was Roger Bacon who repeats Joachim's conviction of the dawning age of the Spirit (of the third age) and of the advent of the "Spiritual Man". Roger Bacon believed the "New Spiritual Man" to be the scientist who used technology to produce what he termed "true miracles".

Joachim also influenced members of the Jesuit order into the 19th century, he influenced the Amauricans (Catholic Humanists) of the late 12th and 13th centuries who regarded the "New Man" as "the conquorer of the earth". He influenced Protestant theologians, 18th century enlightenment thinkers, G. E. Lessing with his "three Ages of the World", Auguste Comte (the founder of Positivism and a major influence on late Ottoman and early Turkish Republican thought) who cites Joachim as one of his precursors, the German romantics, philosophers such as F. W. Schelling, and various types of todays modernists, including politicians, who have been subtly, subconsciously and deeply influenced by his writings and his "logic of historical inevitability".

His thought, his understanding of the Apocalypse, of the trinitarian and thus therefore he argued, tri-partite course of history has been passed on through chains of intermediaries and has influenced over the last 200 years a whole range of people: the painter Kandinsky, the author George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) in books such as Romola and Daniel Deronda, George Sand, the psychologist Jung, the poet W. B. Yeats and Adolf Hitler, modern Christian Protestant evangelists to the Jews, John Gawler, Arthur Balfour, Lloyd George and Tony Blair, U.S. Presidents George Bush I and II, Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright, amongst many others.

He wrote in the 12th century about the third stage or Third Age (Lat. Status) of the world, which would come before the Apocalypse and the end of the world, which he saw as the coming historical event, to be preceeded by the evangelisation of the whole world through the Christian evangelical church, not through the existing 12th century Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, but through the evangelical church, "made up of men who choose the future", to create a "new world order".

This course of events he regarded as inevitable, through his understanding of the Book of the Apocalypse and his reading of the "progress" of history. He saw the Old Testament as prefiguring the New, with the New Testament prefiguring the "Third Age", with each age having both a spiritual and a real historical reality. His "Third Age" would be brought about as a historical fact on earth through the work of Christian evangelists and the Holy Spirit, as the first age was brought about by God the Father and the Prophets and the Second Age by the advent of Christ.

The Third Age, through the agency of the Holy Spirit would bring about "the end of history", the conversion of the Jews to Christianity, the conversion of "the Moslems and other infidels" to Christianity, to bring in "a new age", of love, peace and spirituality, of a "one world religion" or in modern parlance, "The Great Universal" and the advent of the "New Man". This third age, the age of the Holy Spirit, is supposed to end with the apocalypse and the end of the world. The application of logic and order by Joachim to the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) and his articulation of the historical inevitability of the arrival of the world in the third age, the age of the spirit, one may think places substantial limits on God's omnipotence, but many have not.

Joachim's writings on the significance of the conversion of the Jews to Christianity as a sign of the third age, led to repeated attempts by Latin Christians, both Catholic and Protestants, to convert the Jews to Christianity through various means. This, combined with the Protestant Evangelical Christian prophetic tradition concerning Romans ch.9, verse 27, where "a remnant (of Israel) shall be saved", led to repeated attempts throughout later history to convert the Jews or a "remnant thereof".

The 19th century is littered with attempts by evangelical Protestant Christian missionaries in the U.S., in England and Germany to convert the Jews to Protestantism and so to bring about the Christian revival, "a peaceful Crusade", thus bringing about the third age, the end of history, the age of the Holy Spirit and the Apocalypse. This interpretation of Romans ch 9, verse 27, dates back in England to at least as early as the 17th century and seems to have been built, in part, upon those figures who expounded on the tradition of history established by Joachim, such as the Frenchman Jean de Roquetillade of the mid-14th century who demanded "the destroying of Muhammedanism (Islam), the subduing of the Turks and the Tartars (Mongols), the converting of the Jews and the infidels, to bring all into one flock and one shepherd (and so to bring about the third age for the world)", and the early 15th century German Gamabon, a reputed relative of Pope Boniface the ninth, who demanded the extermination of the Jews in order to bring about the third age of the world.

Protestant Joachimite Apocalyptic tradition seems to spring, as does the Catholic Joachimite Apocalyptic tradition, from a climate of fear of the present, in part caused by the dislocations and transformations of society and tradition brought about, in England for example, by the agrarian revolution (the enclosure of public lands by the wealthy), the bubonic plague, the increasing secularisation of society with the Industrial Revolution and modernity, in other words, through the Protestant work ethic and the persuit of worldly gain, riches and power. Likewise, the Moslem reconquest of Jerusalem after a mere century of Christian Crusader control, Christian infighting and the chaos brought about by the investuiture controversy and the struggle for power between Pope and Emperor, along with revolts in various forms against the luxury and vices of the upper ranks of the Catholic Church, which would lead to the violent and bloody Protestant Reformation, formed the historical backdrop to the Abbot Joachim's own prophetic discourse.

Samuel Baker in his travels in the Sudan in 1861 met two German Protestant missionary families, who were converts from Judaeism, Mr. and Mrs. Stern and Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal. They were travelling across the Sudan on their way to Ethiopia to attempt to covert the Falasha Jews of Ethiopia to Protestantism. They were imprisoned by Emperor Theodore III of Ethiopia and were released from prison as a consequence of a British military force invading Ethiopia to free the imprisoned British Consul. The London Society for the promotion of Christianity among the Jews, which had branches right across Europe, was founded in 1809 with the intention to convert the Jews to Protestantism. It sent its first missionaries to Jerusalem in 1820 and was supported in the 1830's by the "reformer" Lord Ashley, stepson of Lord Palmerston the British Foreign Secretary. Lord Ashley saw a great future in Palestine for "Hebrew Protestant Christians".

The Society for the promotion of Christianity amongst the Jews was heavily supported by the Anglican (Church of England) Episcopate. 250 Jews, mainly former rabbinical scholars, were converted to Protestant Anglicanism in Britain in the 19th century and become Anglican clergymen. Other famous converts from Judaism to Protestantism in the 19th century include the missionary and agent Joseph Wolff, who travelled on a variety of missions throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and Afghanistan, F. C. Ewald, Ridley Herschell and Moses Margoliouth. The first Anglican Protestant Bishop to be appointed to Jerusalem was Michael Solomon Alexander, a Polish Jew born in Germany who had converted to Anglicanism in Plymouth, England. The intention of this Anglo-Prussian and later Anglo-German Protestant Bishopric of Jerusalem (purely Anglican-Church of England after 1886), with its Bishop alternating between a Prussian and a British subject, was to direct the Protestant efforts aimed at the conversion of the Jews in Syria, including Palestine, Chaldea (todays Iraq), Egypt and Abyssinia to Protestantism, thus to usher in the third age, the age of the Holy Spirit.

Lord Palmerston the British Foreign Secretary, in August 1840, at the instigation of Lord Ashley, requested permission from the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmecit (1839-61) for the return of British Jews to Ottoman Palestine (part of the Ottoman province of Syria), the support for this enterprise to come in Palmerston's words, from "the freemasonry fraternity", which seems to have been the way he described the European Jewish diaspora. The Sultan rejected this request. However, the seed laid by Lord Ashley hatched 77 years later, with the British Government's Balfour Declaration of 1917. This declaration is seen as the legitimising text for the establishment of the modern state of Israel, at the real cost of warfare, dispossesing and exiling the Palestinians from their lands and homes and of causing suffering, sorrow, anger, violence, calls for vengence and rising fanaticism.

The key part of the Balfour Declaration reads: "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object. It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." The consequences of the partial implementation of this policy are visible today in the Palestinian refugee camps, in the Palestinian diaspora, the endless toll of injury and death, and in the refusal by both Israel and the U.S. to even speak today with the Palestinians own elected leader.

The influence of Joachim of Fiore's thought marches on with the apocalyptic subtext of Christian Zionist thought in modern American foreign policy.

In exchange for their assistance in bringing about the third age, the age of the spirit, through their support for the state of Israel, the Protestant evangelists of the U.S. today, a powerful force in U.S. politics, believe they have guaranteed their place in heaven, they have gained salvation for themselves through their aiding Zionist Israel and are helping to bring on the Apocalypse. No doubt the recently publicised intention of the present American Administration, expounded by the U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice in August 2003 for American led "regime change" in 22 sovereign states, including all the Moslem states in the Middle East, will go well towards bringing about the apocalypse the Christian Fundamentalists desire, concealed beneath the slogan of bringing "democracy and liberty" to the Middle East.

Strange, the arrogance of those who claim to be doing the work of God in the world, one thinks of references to a new "crusade" made by the U.S. President in 2001, who can name those countries and peoples that form "the axis of evil", without once looking in the mirror, and strange indeed the consequences of their actions in bringing about "The New World Order", not least the near complete absence of security and liberty for the mainy Moslem inhabitants of both Afghanistan and Iraq, following the respective American invasions for "regime change" in these countries of 2002 and 2003.

How can one deal with these people, touched by a 12th century interpretation of the Apocalypse, touched by a 12th century interpretation of history, who wear the "shirt of salvation" already here on earth? This is what those who strive for a just and legal solution to the Palestinian problem, that is, the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli presence from illegally occupied Palestinian land, illegally occupied by Israel since 1967, in line with U.N. resolutions and international law, are up against.

This is the Christian evangelical "fundamentalist logic" behind U.S. Congressmen such as the influential Texans Richard Armey and Tom DeLay's support for the expulsion of the Palestinians from occupied Palestine and for the Jewish occupation of Moslem territory; this is what lies behind consistant U.S. military, foreign policy and financial support and subsidies for the Zionist state of Israel. This legacy of Joachim's is why "born again" evangelical Christian zealots are unable to see the problem of Palestine in any but millenarian apocalyptic terms. The fact that they are being taken for a ride by the Israeli Zionist lobby is beside the point, for the Christian evangelist believes in the manifest destiny of the third age, "the age of evangelism", leading to the apocalypse.

Turkish Daily News

Brief bibliography
The Zealous Intruders -- the Western rediscovery of Palestine, Naomi Shepherd, Collins, London 1987.

The Nile tributaries of Abyssinia, Samuel Baker, Macmillan, London, 1867.

Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic future, Marjorie Reeves, Sutton Publishing 1999.

Medieval foundations of the Western intellectual tradition 400-1400, Marcia L. Colish, Yale Univ. Press, 1997.

The Medieval World, Europe 1100-1300, Fredrich Heer, Phoenix, London, 1998.

The Apocalypse of the Old Testament: Daniel Deronda and the interpetation of interpretation, Mary Wilson Carpenter, PMLA Vol. 99, Jan 1984 (With an informative bibliography of 19th Protestant Apocalyptic literature).

George Eliots Daniel Deronda: Progenitor of a Jewish State, DR A. Clare Brandabur, The peace Review, Univ. of San Francisco, June 2001.

President Bush and the Christian Zionist Lobby, Clifford Kiracofe, Daily Star, Beirut, May 9, 2002.